


i break wild roses

by halfmoonsevenstars



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Femslash February, With a little bit of 616 stuff thrown in for reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:06:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfmoonsevenstars/pseuds/halfmoonsevenstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's August 1950 and Peggy Carter, Director of SHIELD, is back in New York for the week, wrangling diplomats and soothing fractured bureaucratic egos by day. By night, Peggy goes out for drinks and dancing with Angie, but it's a beautiful Russian girl she brings back to the hotel room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i break wild roses

**Author's Note:**

> I never could have done this without the help of my beta reader [Odsbodkins](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Odsbodkins/pseuds/Odsbodkins). Thank you for the beta - and all the hand-holding!
> 
> "For the Goddess Too Well Known"  
> Elsa Gidlow
> 
> I have robbed the garrulous streets,  
> Thieved a fair girl from their blight,  
> I have stolen her for a sacrifice  
> That I shall make to this night.
> 
> I have brought her, laughing,  
> To my quietly dreaming garden.  
> For what will be done there  
> I ask no man pardon.
> 
> I brush the rouge from her cheeks,  
> Clean the black kohl from the rims  
> Of her eyes; loose her hair;  
> Uncover the glimmering, shy limbs.
> 
> I break wild roses, scatter them over her.  
> The thorns between us sting like love's pain.  
> Her flesh, bitter and salt to my tongue,  
> I taste with endless kisses and taste again.
> 
> At dawn I leave her  
> Asleep in my wakening garden.  
> (For what was done there  
> I ask no man pardon.)

_August, 1950_

Peggy’s grateful that she’d insisted on getting a hotel room with an air conditioning unit in the window, because it’s been oppressively hot, and after the week she’s had she’s in absolutely no mood to sweat any more than she already has. Damn, but she’ll be glad when SHIELD has permanent offices here in New York. She’d never thought she’d see the day when she actually _wants_ to be back in Washington, DC—ugly, squat little town that it is—but at least the architect had thought to install central heating and cooling in the headquarters building there. Not that she’s a fan of the Triskelion, exactly; it’s a bit modern for her tastes, but it does serve a purpose. And having an entire floor to herself isn’t so bad, either, Peggy has to admit.

But all the same, it’s still good to be in New York again. It had been home for a precious few years, and the little that Peggy’s seen of it between interminable meetings with frantic DoD liaisons and diplomats and military attachés has been like a balm to her frazzled nerves. She would like to get back out to Brooklyn before she leaves. The old SSR lab hidden behind its storefront is gone now, destroyed completely after Dr. Erskine’s experiment just so any lingering HYDRA operatives wouldn’t get their hands on the equipment (the files and biological samples had been the first things rushed out of there). Peggy still wants to see it anyway, if only because she had never gone back after that day and she thinks that perhaps she should.

Despite her long day, which had begun well before dawn, it’s still light outside after Peggy steps out of the shower, feeling much better than she had—invigorated, really, by the cool air hitting her damp skin, and she thinks that perhaps she might go out tonight after all. It’s been far too long since she’s taken any time for herself, spent any time with someone who doesn’t work for her, and Peggy sits down on the bed to towel-dry her hair before picking up the receiver and cradling it against her ear as she the apartment she and Angie had once shared, and where Angie had continued to stay even after Peggy moved to Washington.

It’s a few minutes before Angie gets to the phone, which Peggy had expected. “Angela Martinelli speaking,” she says a little breathlessly, “to whom do I owe the pleasure?”

“Seems like I’ve managed to find some time away from Ma Bell,” Peggy says dryly; Peggy’s phone company job is an old joke between them now. “Fancy a drink at Mona’s?”

Angie laughs, and when she speaks again it’s in her usual tone. “Hey, English. I was starting to think you’d forgotten all about me.”

“Hardly. Are you up for it tonight or have you got to run lines?”

There’s a pause while she considers. “Nah, the play’s lousy anyway. If I forget my lines, it’ll be an improvement on what this guy wrote.”

“Oh? I thought it was an Ibsen adaptation,” Peggy says, winding the telephone cord around her finger absently.

“Peg, have you ever _read_ Ibsen? It’s the theatrical equivalent of watching paint dry. Not even Arthur can save this crap.”

She can’t help but laugh. “All right, point taken. Why don’t you meet me at nine in front of the West 4th Street station, then?”

“Curfew’s at ten,” Angie says, and Peggy can practically _hear_ her smirking.

“Oh, I think we can work around _that_.”

“Can we?”

“Don’t you dare be late, Angela, or I’ll recruit you. And I’m a _much_ more demanding employer than the Hippodrome.”

“Yeah, but you still make everyone take the loyalty oath, don’tcha?”

“Smart-arse.”

“You love me.”

“Fortunately for you, yes. Are you coming or not?”

“All right already, let me take my hair out of these curlers and I’ll meet you. You’ve sure gotten pushy since they gave you that promotion, English.” Angie hangs up on her, laughing.

It’s quick work to find the lightweight, sleeveless pink summer dress that she’d packed and press out the wrinkles, and even quicker work still to comb through her mostly-dry hair and tie it back in a simple ponytail. No elaborate hairstyles tonight—where they’re going, Peggy would rather not stand out. No need to court the wrong kind of interest. Her SHIELD badge _is_ a form of protection, true, and if anything were to happen, she’s sure she could get herself and Angie out of the situation with relative ease, but why risk it? The NYPD is notoriously raid-happy, and Peggy knows there are no guarantees when it comes to their whims.

\--

Peggy spots Angie almost immediately upon exiting the subway station; she’s leaning against a streetlight, wearing her usual going-out-to-the-bar outfit of dark wide-legged trousers and a crisp fitted blouse with the sleeves rolled up, accessorized by a pair of bright red suspenders and matching newsboy hat perched at a jaunty angle on top of her curls. She greets Peggy with a warm, tight hug that would be too much coming from anyone else, and Peggy returns it enthusiastically. It’s been almost a year since they’ve seen one another, and it’s not until Peggy sees her that she realizes just how much she’s missed Angie—missed the company of women, really.

“You’re looking good. Tired, but good,” Angie says as they start to walk over toward Mona’s on West 3rd Street, their arms linked loosely enough that they look just like any other pair of women headed out for the evening, looking for dance partners, which is of course what they are.

“You certainly know how to talk to a lady.” Peggy smiles, though; Angie doesn’t mean anything by it, and she’s one of the few people in the world who doesn’t make a statement like that sound like an insult.

“I just mean, I can tell you’ve been working hard. I’m glad you were able to get away for the night,” Angie tells her, bumping their elbows together lightly. “I’d have been pretty pissed if you’d spent a whole week here and didn’t come see me.”

“I was lucky to be able to,” she replies. “The only reason I could leave before sundown was due to nearly everyone else wanting to get to their summer homes in the Hamptons early.”

“I never knew the phone company was so fancy.” Angie lifts a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

“We aren’t. Our consultants are, though.” Even diplomats like to knock off early in the summertime.

“And here I thought I was living the high life because my last director took us all to the Grand Central Oyster Bar when the _Daily Bugle_ gave us a good review,” she teases.

Peggy sighs. “If only we had anywhere half as good in Washington, Angie. Alas, it’s something of a culinary wasteland.”

Angie looks at her askance as they turn the corner. “Can you at least get a good plate of lasagna?”

“Adequate,” she says ruefully.

“Now _that_ is a tragedy.”

“You’re telling me. I’ve had to learn how to cook!”

Angie laughs. “Oh, god, and you haven’t burned the house down yet?”

“So far, no, though I’ve been giving it my best effort.”

There’s a momentary break in conversation as they reach their destination, making a beeline straight for the bar. The place is already crowded, with nowhere to sit, so Peggy and Angie take up a spot leaning against a far wall after they pay for their cocktails. Peggy’s drinking a sweating glass of gin and tonic that is mercifully, beautifully cold; Angie sticks with her usual Mai Tai, which she sips as she casts an eye over the dance floor.

“Lot of cuties here tonight,” Angie says to her after a few minutes. “Check out that one over there.” She gestures with her drink across the room toward a tall woman who’s clearly looking for a dance partner.

“You should talk to her,” Peggy says, “she’s just your type.” The woman is very pretty, with big brown eyes and long curly dark hair, her golden-brown skin offset by a white summer dress trimmed in blue.

“I think I might,” and the deal is sealed when Angie catches the woman’s eye and she smiles back. “Catch you later?”

“Absolutely. Go.” Peggy waves her off with a shooing motion, content for now to get a drink inside her and watch the goings-on at the bar.

She’s on her second gin and tonic, watching Angie and the other woman dancing in between keeping an eye on any tables that look as if they will shortly become vacant, as their standing rule is that it’s the responsibility of whoever’s unoccupied to look for a place to eventually sit down with their dates. The song changes to something light and bouncy, and a petite young redhead approaches Peggy with an uncertain smile. She’s pretty, with lots of curves, and pillowy lips outlined in a soft peach lipstick, though her dress—a low-cut black number with three-quarter sleeves—is slightly out of fashion and _definitely_ out of season. But she looks artless and charming nonetheless.

“Would you care to dance?” Her English is good, though blurred slightly by a Russian accent. “It would be a shame for a beautiful woman like yourself to spend the evening alone.”

“Do you always flatter potential dance partners this much?” Peggy asks with good humor, and she smiles back at the woman to put her at ease.

“Only the ones who look like they’re good at it.” Her eyes crinkle at the corners as her smile grows more confident.

Peggy drains the rest of her cocktail and sets the empty glass down on a nearby bussing station so that she can extend her hand. “Peggy Carter,” she introduces herself.

The young woman takes it, her fingers cool and dry. “Nadia Tarasova.”

Nadia turns out to be a great dancer, for which Peggy is glad—it’s been too long since she’s done anything like this, though it’s been less out of a desire to forget this part of herself and more due to a lack of opportunity. It’s hard to go out and meet anyone when one’s job is so demanding, and that would be the case whether Peggy were looking for a man _or_ a woman. She’s happy to be here, happy to be with Angie who is evidently having the time of her life, happy to be looking at a beautiful woman and losing herself in the music. They dance together for several songs, only stopping when Angie taps her on the shoulder to say she’s spotted an empty table and the four of them should go snag it. As Peggy could use a drink, and Nadia agrees, they follow Angie and her date (who introduces herself as Marisol) over to the back corner.

It’s nothing short of amazing that they get a table at all, much less one away from the jukebox, where conversation between several people can actually be heard in relative quiet. Really, it’s more of a booth, covered in well-worn red velvet, and Peggy suspects that it might actually have once been a fixture at a nice Catholic church somewhere.

It reminds her a bit of St. Paul’s, one she’d attended sporadically in Brooklyn Heights, before she’d moved into the city and met Colleen. Peggy had first gone with Steve, the Sunday before Dr. Erskine’s experiment, partly out of curiosity and partly out of guilt; she’d grown up in the Church of England but hadn’t attended a service since the war began. He’d seemed to take the whole thing very seriously up until the sermon, at which point Steve had taken on the glazed expression of a practiced daydreamer. Peggy herself had stopped believing in God right around the time she spent as a FANY, even though it had been mostly a cover. She’d driven an ambulance during the Battle of Britain, retrieving downed airmen from southeast England and picking up other SSR agents and their messages along the way. Their agonized screams as she drove hell-for-leather back to evacuation hospitals, jolting along scarred roads and dodging wreckage, had all but burnt the possibility of God out of her, replaced it with the sense that waiting around for a higher power to correct all the wrongs in the world is nothing but a fool’s game.

“Peggy?” Nadia’s soft voice all but breathes into her ear, and Peggy startles at the suddenness of it.

“Hm?” She does her best to look completely unoccupied, as though she’s merely gotten distracted for a moment.

“Are you all right?” Her lovely, full lips are drawn into a slight pout, though her eyebrows say she’s a bit worried. Peggy knows her type—young and fidgety and only entertained in short bursts.

Which is perfectly fine, because if Angie doesn’t mind (which she won’t), Peggy’s going to take this girl home and fuck her within an inch of her life.

It’s _adorable_ , Peggy decides. “Oh, of course, darling. I’m just a bit dehydrated. I’m going to order a cocktail when the waitress comes round. Would you like one?”

“I could use a drink,” Nadia says. “It’s warm in here.”

“You’re telling me,” Marisol chimes in, having made herself comfortable next to Angie. “But at least they’ve got the fans going, so it’s not too bad.”

Angie nods. “Better than the theater, anyway. That place is like an oven, and I don’t even know how it gets that way, with the high ceilings.”

“You’re an actress?” Nadia asks.

“Mostly I’m a waitress with aspirations,” Angie says wryly, leaning back against Marisol’s arm around her shoulders. “But I’m currently rehearsing for an Ibsen play.”

It’s amazing how long the four of them wind up talking, even when they’re interrupted momentarily by the waitress coming to take their orders and then deliver the drinks to the table. The conversation doesn’t always stay within the entire group, often splitting into pairs and then joining back up again at random, as tends to happen in places like these.

Nadia, for her part, asks a great deal of questions about Washington, DC. Peggy has grown fond of the city since moving there three years ago, despite its ugliness, but she wouldn’t exactly call it exciting. It occurs to Peggy about a half-hour in that Nadia is probably a spy—it wouldn’t be the first time that the Soviets have planted someone in a bar to try and pick her up, acting a little _too_ interested in Peggy’s job at C &P Telephone, or posing as a flirtatious tourist at a café asking her all kinds of manufactured questions about exploring the capital city. And this one isn’t a recent immigrant or war bride who would have become acquainted enough with New York already to find a place like Mona’s; she’s a stewardess. How _would_ a Soviet air hostess find a clandestine bar for lesbians in New York, Peggy wonders? They’re a bit far from the airports in the outer boroughs, and cab rides to and from can get expensive.

Angie eventually says, “I need the girls’ room. Marisol, could you—yeah, thanks.” The other woman slides out of the booth so that she can leave it and lights a cigarette after offering one to Nadia. “Peggy, you coming?”

“Yes, actually. Nadia?”

Nadia shakes her head, taking the cigarette from Marisol. “I will stay.”

“All right, then, darling. I’ll be right back!” Peggy says brightly, giving Nadia’s knee a squeeze.

Nadia smiles radiantly, and Peggy has to get up _right this instant_ or she’s going to kiss that peach lipstick right off her in front of everyone in this bar, possible spy or no. And small as it is, it still manages to pack in a _lot_ of people somehow. Once they make it to the ladies’ room, Angie dashes into a stall; Peggy checks her own lipstick in the mirror and manages to scrape away the bits that have feathered out from the corners from the heat.

Angie towels her hands off after washing them and then promptly elbows Peggy in the side, grinning from ear to ear. “Look at you, English! I never knew you liked redheads.”

Peggy elbows her back. “ _Love_ redheads. I guess we’re going have to flip a coin for the hotel room,” she jokes, but they’ve done it before, on Peggy’s previous visits to the city while scouting for potential new recruits to SHIELD.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Marisol already said she’d like to go out for breakfast tomorrow morning, let someone serve us for a change,” Angie tells her, clearly delighted by the prospect.

“Oh?”

Angie hoots with laughter. “Turns out, she’s a waitress at the 21 Club. Can you believe it? We’ve been trading war stories all night, only hers involve more famous jerks than mine.”

“Mine is an air hostess for Aeroflot. She just started a few months ago, she says. She’s been trying to impress me with all of her traveling credentials. I’m waiting for her to bring out her passport and show me the stamps just to prove it.”

“And it’s _completely_ working on you,” Angie replies, grinning.

“Oh, yes, well. Peggy Carter of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company has only ever lived in London and Washington, DC, and plus I’m so _terribly_ old, you know.”

“Jesus, Peg, how old _is_ she, anyway? And before you ask, mine’s 26, so fair’s fair.”

“She’s 22,” Peggy has to admit.

Angie whistles. “And you’re a whole 31. Should I start knitting a blanket for her cradle, or what? You should ask her for ID. She looks 22 like my _nonna_ looks 40.”

Peggy throws a towel at her. “Oh, shut up. At least _I_ never dated a poet.”

“That was one time!“

“Still counts.”

“You know, English, you can be pretty cold-blooded when you want to.”

“And yet you put up with me anyway.”

Angie grins again, her whole face lighting up with it. “Yeah, well, not every ex-girlfriend is worth keeping around. You’re pretty much the exception, English.”

“Goodness, I feel so loved.” Peggy reaches over and fixes the collar on Angie’s blouse so that it lies flat. “Listen, I’ve got to make a phone call. Stay in here while I nip out to the booth, so we can head back together?”

“You got it.” As if on cue, Angie opens her reticule and whips out a stack of sloppily typewritten papers. “I can practice in here. This bathroom’s got good acoustics, actually.”

“I thought you hated that play.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean I want to _personally_ contribute to any bad reviews, you know?”

“I’ll take your word for it, darling.” Peggy drops a quick kiss onto Angie’s cheek without warning, leaving her to rub the lipstick print off, and then she’s slipped through the door—after surveilling to make sure Nadia isn’t on her way over—and into the phone booth, which fortunately obscures her from most casual passersby as she dials the temporary offices underneath the New York Public Library.

“Agent Sousa here,” he answers.

“Daniel,” she greets him, glad that it’s Sousa and not someone else; this will take a lot less explaining because he knows better than to do anything but give her what she needs to know. “I need you to do me a favor, if you would. Check on an air hostess for Aeroflot named Nadia Tarasova? She’s early twenties, red hair, a bit shorter than I am.”

“The Soviet airline?”

“The one and the same.”

“I’ll call you back the second I’ve got something,” Sousa promises.

True to his word, the pay phone rings in less than five minutes, and his answer, well—it’s just as Peggy had suspected, though she hadn’t really wanted to believe it, as it’s been so long since she last took anyone home on a near-whim. Aeroflot had never heard of a Nadia Tarasova, and Peggy can’t help but laugh at that piece of news. Daniel doesn’t ask what’s funny, and she doesn’t tell him why, just that she’ll file a report tomorrow.

Good thing so many people have tried to kill her already, she thinks, or she wouldn’t have this protocol set up and she’d be up shit’s creek without a paddle, as it were. Peggy shakes her head at the absurdity of it before heading back into the ladies’ room. The last thing Peggy and Angie do before heading back to the table is tell each other where they’re going; obviously, Peggy is going back to the hotel with Nadia, and Angie gives her Marisol’s address. Another standing protocol of theirs—but just as necessary, in Peggy’s opinion. One never knows when one might run into trouble.

Trouble is just what Peggy is in for tonight and she’s well aware of it. It’s stupid. It’s _very_ stupid, and it would be if she were a field agent, let alone Director. But…damn it, she hasn’t been with anyone in months, and the girl is no doubt the best they’d had to send over, but Peggy can beat her if it comes down to that.

No, she corrects herself; _when_ it comes down to that. Nadia does look young, true, but Peggy had indeed caught a glimpse of her passport earlier. Nadia had opened her reticule to open a tin of mints and passed them around the table, presumably without the knowledge that Peggy’s peripheral vision is _extremely_ sharp. That will make it easier, at least, Peggy thinks in a rare moment of prickly gloom. She doesn’t know if she could go through with teaching this particular lesson to an actual child.

It isn’t long before the two pairs decide to split apart for the evening, but not before Angie’s extracted a promise from Peggy to meet for lunch on Sunday before she takes the train back down to Washington. Angie and Marisol wave off the suggestion of sharing a taxi with Peggy and Nadia, telling them they’ll take the subway and not to worry about it.

Which is a relief, frankly, as Peggy wants to get back to the hotel as quickly as possible, and from the way Nadia keeps slipping her hand up Peggy’s dress when the driver isn’t looking in the rearview mirror, she can guess that Nadia does too.

How _very_ enterprising of her.

\--

It’s a miracle they don’t knock over any lamps in their haste to rid themselves of their clothing. Peggy nearly breaks the zipper of Nadia’s dress yanking it down, swearing under her breath when it gets stuck in the fabric, but she manages to pry it free without damaging anything. The dress winds up on the floor, where it’s soon joined by Nadia’s brassiere, panties, garter belt, and stockings.

“My god, but you’re beautiful,” she murmurs as Nadia stands before her, now completely nude as she uses her nimble fingers to rapidly unhook Peggy’s own brassiere, which Peggy tosses onto the bedpost after untying the ribbon in her hair and letting it fall free over her shoulders. She’d let her dress fall where she’d shrugged it off; no matter, it’s already wrinkled from sitting in the bar, and then in the taxi. It’s true—Nadia is even more beautiful in her natural state, her lips bee-stung from kissing, her red hair slightly mussed.

Nadia smiles, bending her head to kiss between Peggy’s breasts. “So are you,” she says, and slides her thumb down from Peggy’s navel and into her high-waisted panties, rubbing at her briefly before withdrawing just enough to tug the satin fabric down. Nadia gives Peggy a moment to step out of them before wrapping her arms around Peggy’s waist and kissing her fiercely.

“Bed?” Peggy breaks the kiss to suggest it, a little breathlessly, and they don’t so much lower themselves onto the mattress as they land on it in a tangle of limbs.

Nadia is the first to sort herself out, kneeling on either side of Peggy’s hips and bending her head to plant a row of sharp little kisses along her throat and clavicle that make Peggy glad she’s lying down, because they turn her knees to marmalade. Nadia marks a trail down Peggy’s sternum and then turns her attention to her breasts, swirling the tip of her tongue around the nipples and smiling up at her when Peggy moans softly. Nadia slips her hand between Peggy’s legs again, parting the soft thicket of dark hair and finding that she’s slick and ready.

She slides two fingers inside Peggy, hooking them slightly as Nadia works them in and out of her, and it feels _incredible_. It feels even better when Nadia withdraws them to start rubbing at Peggy’s clit, and she can’t help but push her hips into the motion of Nadia’s hand; Peggy’s breath quickens, and she twists the sheets in her hands with the effort of holding on.

“I’m going to—” Peggy manages to gasp just before she comes, her whole body shaking from the intensity of it.

Nadia doesn’t remove her hand until Peggy is spent, and she smiles. “Good?”

“Couldn’t ask for better,” Peggy answers when she’s caught her breath.

Nadia’s smile widens, and she climbs off Peggy to sit next to her, though it doesn’t last long; Peggy just _has_ to kiss her again, pushing her down onto the pillows. She tastes like mints and cigarettes and vodka, and her lips are so soft that Peggy can’t stay away from them. She starts there, then works her way down as Nadia had done with her, but Peggy doesn’t stop at her breasts—though she certainly doesn’t ignore them, not by any means. They’re too perfect to pass up the opportunity to spend some time with them, especially because Nadia keeps making the most _delightful_ little noises when Peggy plays with her pert, rosy nipples.

She leaves a glistening line of kisses down Nadia’s flat white stomach and is pleased to find her ready when Peggy reaches her mons, the red hair there surprisingly soft rather than wiry as Peggy had imagined; she begins to explore Nadia with long, slow strokes of her tongue, teasing her with it until Nadia’s hands work their way into Peggy’s hair to show that she ought to pick up the pace, which she does, rolling her tongue in figure-eights along that velvety little nub. It’s only a matter of time before Nadia’s back arches and the muscles of her thighs tighten. She doesn’t make a sound as Peggy rides the orgasm with her, only stopping when Nadia’s finished and has collapsed back against the pillows.

“All right?” Peggy asks, sitting up and stretching her arms over her head, resisting the urge to lick her lips right away.

Nadia smiles, reaching over to twist a lock of Peggy’s hair around her finger. “Oh, yes. “

“It’s been a while since I did that,” Peggy has to admit. “I was worried I’d forgotten how.”

“Oh, no, not at all.” Nadia releases her hair and rolls over to rummage around in her reticule for a cigarette and lighter, which gives Peggy just enough time to slip the Walther PPK out of her own purse and underneath her pillow. “You don’t mind, do you?” she asks.

Peggy shakes her head, grabbing an edge of the sheet that had spilled onto the floor and pulling it toward her so she can cover herself; now that the sweat is starting to dry, she’s a bit chilly from the air conditioning. “Make yourself at home, darling. I’ve no objection.”

“Thank you.” Nadia lights her cigarette and smokes about half of it in affable silence until she suddenly yawns loudly. She immediately covers her mouth, her cheeks coloring. “Excuse me. It’s been a long day with the changes in time zone.”

“Of course,” Peggy agrees. “I’ve had a rather long week myself. We might as well turn in, don’t you think? The maids won’t come round until almost noon, as I’m staying over, so we can have a bit of a lie-in.”

“I don’t think I can stay until noon, but I could certainly use the sleep,” Nadia tells her, stubbing it out in the ashtray on the bedside table.

Peggy reaches across her to snap off the tableside lamp, flopping back down onto her pillow inelegantly. Nadia, for her part, rolls onto her side to face Peggy, giving a little sigh of relief as she wraps her hand around a slat in the headboard and burrows under the top sheet.

“All right if that’s on?” Peggy thinks to ask, lifting her hand toward the light in the bathroom, which she’d left switched on since before leaving the hotel earlier tonight. It’s not enough to be distracting, at least not for her, but she’d prefer to have it, as there are no night-vision devices handy. Nadia makes a sleepy but assenting noise, so Peggy allows herself to close her eyes—for the time being.

It’s only slightly disappointing when not more than an hour later, Peggy hears the unmistakable sound of a purse clasp being pried open. She opens her eyes just a fraction, as much as she dares, and sees that while she’d been focusing on appearing to be asleep, Nadia had stealthily rolled onto her back and reached over for her reticule. Peggy can’t make out the outline of a gun in the girl’s hand, so it’s got to be either a garrote or a knife.

She’s betting on garrote, as Nadia hadn’t brought her overnight bag with her; she’d claimed to have left it at the stewardess quarters at a hotel near Flushing Airport, so that rules out a change of clothes. Nobody would risk going back to Queens after using a knife in close-quarter combat, not even at this time of the night. But who knows? It could even be poison, knowing Leviathan’s penchant for clever gadgets to administer it.

Peggy keeps her eyes open just to a sliver and braces herself for impact.

Nadia lunges at her silently, clearly intending to pin her down before Peggy can wake up and react accordingly.

Peggy sits up and raises her crossed wrists at almost the last second to ward off whatever it is—the whatever making itself apparent when a wire bites into the tender skin of her forearms; she then immediately draws up her knees and delivers a two-footed kick to Nadia’s abdomen, nearly knocking her off the bed.

Nadia breathes out a strangled gasp as the wind’s knocked out of her, but she recovers quickly and drops the garrote to lunge for Peggy once more, presumably thinking to snap her neck, or strangle Peggy with her bare hands.

It’s an odd thought to have in the middle of a fight, Peggy knows, but she can’t help being grateful that this is largely a quiet struggle between them; the last thing anyone needs is hotel management banging on the door. Peggy waits until Nadia is nearly on top of her before she reaches out, lightning-fast, and grabs Nadia’s right forearm, twisting it behind the girl’s back in a lock that will dislocate her shoulder if she tries to escape it.

Nadia hisses in pain, her face paling in the dim light, and she does her best to yank away from Peggy and break her grip. She’s unsuccessful, although there’s no telltale popping noise of a dislocation, and changes tactics to take a swing with her left hand, the non-dominant one. Peggy blocks it easily, squeezing Nadia’s birdlike wrist until the skin around it goes livid.

Nadia doesn’t struggle too much more beyond that; rather, she relaxes in Peggy’s grip, gradually going a bit limp. “All right,” she says finally, sounding injured to the point of petulance, “you win, I give up.”

“You’ll behave if I let you go?” Peggy inquires, not moving an inch.

She nods, her red hair falling in a curtain that hides her expression.

Peggy lets go of her left wrist first, then pushes Nadia away as far and as fast as she can to buy herself a few seconds to grab her gun from underneath her pillow before the girl attacks once more. Which, predictably, she does try again, only to find the muzzle just inches away from her forehead where Peggy’s aiming it. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Nadia’s mouth drops open in surprise, then reforms quickly into a thin, pressed line. She drops down onto her own pillow again, massaging her shoulder and glaring at Peggy.

“I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to hurt you,” Peggy tells her, and she’s truly regretful. The girl’s going to have bruises on her arms for days, which she’s sure will lead to some uncomfortable questioning in Moscow. “But did you really think that someone hadn’t already tried that on me?”

Nadia’s pretty face twists into an unbecoming scowl. “I didn’t pretend to be an American,” she mutters.

Lord, this one _is_ young. “Look, darling, if it helps, Dottie was good, but you are too. Now tell me what this is all about, starting with your real name. You don’t have to give me the whole thing, but I want to know with whom I’m speaking.”

Her mouth turns downward, pale now that it’s devoid of artificial color, and Peggy can see a hint of pearly white teeth sunk into that pillowy bottom lip. “I don’t have to tell you anything. I want to talk to the Soviet Embassy.”

“Fair enough,” she answers with a shrug. “But not right this moment. We’ll keep this off the record, right until I watch you get into a taxicab from my window here.”

Nadia frowns. “Off the r—“

“I won’t include this portion of our conversation in my report,” Peggy clarifies. “As far as SHIELD is concerned, I brought you back here so we could freshen up to go to a late supper, you attacked me, and I won the fight using non-lethal force. I then allowed you to claim amnesty at the embassy because I was in a generous mood and besides, we could only verify the _absence_ of your cover identity, not your _presence_. But I’m asking you merely to satisfy my curiosity. Now, what’s your name, birdie?”

“Natasha,” the girl mutters after a long pause.

“Natasha. Lovely.” She knows that’s all she’s going to get out of her, so she doesn’t push for a patronymic or surname. Peggy keeps her Walther PPK trained on Natasha, even as she gets up to shrug on a dressing gown, carefully shifting the gun from hand to hand as she does, and leaves it open rather than risk tying it with the safety off. She also takes care to keep her tone light and friendly, but not fake. No use in spooking the girl. “So, Natasha, I presume that you’re a member of the Black Widow program? Are they, in fact, still running such a program? I hadn’t heard of any activity in the past few years.”

Natasha nods. “I’ve been running missions in West Germany, mostly. But I had one in Toronto last spring.”

“What were you doing before then?”

“Fighting,” she says, and her face closes off, her shoulders stiffening. “On the Eastern Front.”

Now that’s something of a surprise, although it shouldn’t be; Peggy had met many Russian women in uniform during her time in the SSR—mechanics, drivers, soldiers, pilots, even snipers. It’s just that, well. She’d known of the Red Room, and that had been quite enough on its own, but little girls playing soldier? “You’re so _young_ ,” Peggy says softly.

“Not as young as I look,” Natasha replies, a knife’s edge creeping back into her words. “I was old enough to hold a gun.”

Old enough to snap necks and be skilled with a knife and have extensive knowledge in the art of sabotage, too, Peggy knows, but she doesn’t say. “I suppose I just never thought about the USSR being—well, that hard up for warm bodies to throw at the offensive.”

“I volunteered. The army needed me more than the department leaders, who agreed with me. I am very proud of my service to Mother Russia,” she says, lifting her chin to look Peggy squarely in the eye.

“I hope that you were well rewarded,” Peggy tells her, and she means it, though she knows that their ideas of a reward must surely be quite different from one another’s.

Natasha’s green eyes flicker for a moment. “Better than anything _you_ ever got. But I would have done it for no reward. The men I served with would have died for me, and I would have died for them.”

She smiles, though it’s not out of anything that could be mistaken for joy. “Now _that_ I can understand. I served with men like that myself.”

“I know,” Natasha answers, and she shows her empty hands to Peggy before using them to push herself up to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard. “But you are an exception, and your ill treatment at the hands of your former colleagues has been well documented. Even now you are not given much respect by some of your underlings.”

Peggy barks out a laugh. “Didn’t have to dig too hard for that, did you, darling?”

“No,” she admits.

“So, why did they send you?” Peggy asks, sitting down on the other end of the bed. She still doesn’t lower her gun, but damned if she’s going to stand there all night.

“Because I’m the best,” Natasha tells her.

Peggy can’t help but smile, shaking her head. “I’m sure you are.”

Natasha bristles. “I _am_.”

“But why _you_ , why _this_? I can only presume you tapped my phone line here at the hotel and knew my general schedule in advance. Why not send a man?”

“They’ve tried.”

“Ah, so I _was_ right. And here Howard told me I was just being silly. I knew that many blond men couldn’t possibly be as interested in me as they were feigning.”

“Mr. Stark is too trusting,” Natasha says.

“Is that what his file says?” Peggy can’t help being amused by that thought, nor when Natasha nods her silent response. “Good heavens, I suppose we’ll have to change out our entire security staff when I return to Washington. So this was Leviathan’s effort to throw me off during the Allied talks with Rhee, then, sending a girl?”

Natasha nods again. “How did you figure it out?” she asks quietly after a few minutes of contemplating her fingernails. “I thought I had it all taken care of.”

“Here’s a tip, darling. Don’t ever leave the planting of false paperwork in a real company’s personnel files to just anyone. _Always_ do it yourself,” Peggy tells her. It’s advice she gives to her own operatives, who take it seriously if they know what’s good for them.

Natasha’s eyes widen. “Oh no. There wasn’t a record of my cover identity at the airline?”

“Not a shred of paper,” Peggy confirms.

She swears a blue streak in Russian, and it’s almost incongruous, coming from such a pretty face. “Idiots. Someone must have misfiled it. That’s never happened to me before.”

“Then you’re rather lucky that it was me you were trying to seduce, hm?” Peggy curls her free arm around the bedpost and smiles. “Tell you what. I’ve had a long week and I’m exhausted. I’ll give you five minutes to get dressed and go downstairs to hail a taxi, and what you do after that is up to you. But I’m going to bed.”

Natasha looks at her, incredulous. “You’re just going to let me go? Like that?”

“You can make up whatever story you want, dear, I don’t really care. Make yourself look good, tell them we’re definitely working on trying to stop this Korean thing before it becomes a full-scale offensive war.” They’ll find that out soon enough anyway, Peggy thinks. Hell, they probably already know.

“Are you?” Natasha glances at Peggy sideways.

“Does it matter?”

“I suppose not. Why are you letting me go?”

“Why kill you if I don’t absolutely have to? It’s not as if you’ve really done all that much damage, though you _do_ know I’ll need to report it regardless. SHIELD takes attempts on the lives of its agents rather seriously. And, considering I’m the head of the agency, I’d be remiss if I didn’t.”

Natasha looks like she’s never contemplated that as an option before. “But you won’t even arrest me? You should.”

Peggy shrugs. “Well, it’s not that you didn’t try—in fact, you succeeded admirably; I was ready to think of you as genuinely interested in my person, had my agent not called back to tell me your story didn’t pan out. But really, _did_ you get any useful information?”

“Only what you just told me,” Natasha admits.

“If it cheers you up any, in all likelihood it was probably just a test anyway to see how close you can get to the director of SHIELD. But they didn’t expect you to succeed, not really,” Peggy tells her. “You can tell them she’s got a weakness for pretty girls she meets at clandestine lesbian bars, and _that_ would probably be useful to them. So you’ll pass with flying colors, I’m sure. But, you know—I’ve given you plenty, Natasha, if you’ll take a moment and think about it.”

Natasha nods, switching on the bedside lamp before reaching down onto the floor for her underwear and stockings. Peggy tosses her brassiere over, as it’s closer to her than it is to Natasha, who finishes putting her clothes back on in silence, only breaking it to ask for help zipping her dress. Peggy gives it freely, glad to have an excuse to touch her again, because surely this is the last time; Moscow won’t make the mistake of sending the same agent twice.

“Listen, If you ever want to join up on the side of—“ Peggy waves her free hand, noticing a chip in her nail polish as she does so and making a very sour face at it. “Democracy, I suppose, would be the easiest answer in more than one way—find any SHIELD agent and ask for me, all right? I mean it. You have the potential to be the best in the world, but you’ll never get it with Leviathan.”

“Just like that?” Natasha shoots her a skeptical glance, belting her coat around her waist. “I use your name, and it’s some magical password?”

Peggy smiles. “Just ask for Peggy Carter, darling. That’s all you need. I promise.”

She stands up, stuffing her feet back into shiny black pumps, and bends down to kiss Peggy one last time. It’s slightly sharp at first but ultimately ends sweetly, with a hint of the vodka Natasha had been drinking earlier and perfumed with the cigarette smoke of the bar. “I’ll think about it. Good night, Director.”

“Good night, Natasha.”

True to her word, Peggy watches from her hotel room window—what she can see from over the air conditioning unit, that is—until Natasha has entered a yellow taxicab that goes speeding uptown as soon as she’s closed the door behind her.

In retrospect, that could have gone _much_ worse, Peggy tells herself. Although really, even without taking the precaution of checking in with Sousa, Peggy would have known it anyway by the way the girl slept. Dead giveaway.

Some things never do change.

And they still think they’re going to win?

Now _that_ makes Peggy laugh.

\--

_May, 2003_

Natasha had never thought it possible—it’s never _happened_ to her before—but she’s trapped with no way out.

She knows there’s no way of getting out of this, because she’s already checked and double-checked and triple-checked, and the SHIELD bastards have her number. They’re not going to let her leave unless she’s in zip-tie handcuffs tightened until her wrists go purple—or unless she’s already cooling on a stretcher, which is another, much more realistic possibility. She’s played this game before, working the other side of things; she knows how it’s done. It’s only protocol, Natasha reminds herself, though it doesn’t slow the mad thumping of her heart inside her chest.

Right now it’s just her and the agent with his bow and quiver, but the rest of his team isn’t far behind. The way his earpiece keeps crackling would tell her that, even if she hadn’t already figured it out on her own.

Only—

“Wait,” she says, and the agent relaxes his bowstring, but only a little. She appreciates that; it means they aren't underestimating her. “Peggy Carter.”

He frowns, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What?”

“I want to talk to Peggy Carter.”

The agent snorts. “Good luck with that. She retired like a dozen years ago. Where are you even getting your intel from, anyway?”

Had it really been that long since—?

“She told me to ask for her,” Natasha tells him.

He shrugs, as much as he’s able with a bow drawn at point-blank range, anyway. “I can’t help you with that, sorry. But my handler can get you in touch with Director Fury.”

It’ll have to be good enough.

“Take me to him.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few notes about the writing of this fic:
> 
> In March 1950, Josef Stalin approved Kim Il Sung’s plan to invade South Korea, believing that the U.S. had little interest in the matter. By September 27, President Truman authorized U.S. forces to advance across the 38th Parallel and into North Korean territory. This shifted the conflict from a so-called rescue operation of South Korea into a full-scale offensive with the intent of stopping communism, so unfortunately, Peggy’s efforts would have been in vain.
> 
> The Triskelion from Captain America: The Winter Soldier first appears in the Earth-1610 comics continuity, in which architect Frank Gehry designed the building. He’s too young to have designed the MCU Triskelion, but I thought it was a fun fact anyway.
> 
> The play in question is a translation/adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s _An Enemy of the People_ , by Arthur Miller, and did in fact debut on Broadway in December 1950. I actually wrote this story before we see Angie reciting a monologue from A Doll’s House in episode 6, so I was incredibly amused when it happened in the show.
> 
> In 1947, President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9835, establishing a sweeping loyalty investigation of federal employees, designed to root out any communist influence in the government, stating that he expected all federal workers to demonstrate "complete and unswerving loyalty" to the U.S. A federal agency like SHIELD would most likely have required a loyalty oath upon joining it as an employee of any kind. 
> 
> Mona’s was a real lesbian bar on West 3rd Street in Manhattan in the 1940s and 1950s. There’s another bar called Mona’s on Avenue B, but that’s a punk bar dating from the 1970s, and isn’t related to this one.
> 
> I couldn’t resist giving Natasha the last name of the Electric Ghost from the Winter Soldier solo comic by Jason Latour, because reasons.
> 
> I also gave Natasha my favorite backstory from the comics, which is that she spent time fighting for the Soviet Army during World War Two as a young teenager. It was never made explicit just where that fits into her Black Widow training, but I liked the idea of the program sending young women out into combat with the dual interest of reinforcing their sense of patriotism and serving the national interest.
> 
> C&P Telephone was the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, which served Washington, DC from 1883 to 1984, when it became part of Bell Atlantic, which is now Verizon.
> 
> Aeroflot is a real airline dating from 1923, and during the Soviet era it was not just the national airline, but also the largest airline in the world. It’s still considered the national airline of Russia and is 51%-owned by the Russian government.
> 
> The 21 Club began as a speakeasy in 1922; once Prohibition was over, it became an upscale supper club and bar known for its celebrity clientele.
> 
> Peggy uses a Walther PPK as her sidearm in Captain America: The First Avenger and Agent Carter, and I don’t see why she wouldn’t continue to do so as Director of SHIELD. It seems to have served her well!


End file.
